Studying The Short-Story

STORIES OF ACTION AND ADVENTURE

Few words are needed to set forth the meaning of this caption, for the designation is sufficiently explicit. One point, however, it will be well to emphasize: In fiction all action worthy of the name is the outward manifestation of an inward condition. There is a sense, therefore, in which all stories that are not mere pictures of internal states are stories of action; just as it may be said that all stories are stories of thought, feeling, and resolve. The point of distinction lies here: in which direction does the story tend?

In one class, outward action is seen to work profoundly upon the inward life, and the story shows us the workings of this influence in its final effect upon the inward man and his character. In another, an inward state is the basis, the premise, the initial force, in the story, and from that beginning the story goes on to show by a series of outward movements just how this great inward force operates in and upon conduct. In a third class, outward and inward action balance.

Now when the outward or visible action, prominently displaying physical movement, becomes paramount, whether shown as cause or as effect, we have the action-story, and sometimes the adventure-story. And in proportion as the interest of the reader centers in what the characters do instead of in what they are, the story departs from the subtler forms, such as the character-study and the psychological-study, and action or adventure becomes the type. Reverse these conditions, and another sort is the result.

Naturally, many variations are possible with these two chief ingredients ready for use. One story may begin with soul action, then proceed to show us bodily action with great vividness, and end by taking us back into the man’s inner life. Another may progress on contrary lines; and so on, in wide variety. The final test as to what is the predominating type lies in the appeal to the interest of the reader: is it based chiefly on what the characters are or on what they do? Is it the why, or the how, the motive or the happening, that is most absorbing? The best stories, even the best action and adventure yarns, are likely to show a fair proportion of both.

MÉRIMÉE AND HIS WRITINGS

Prosper Mérimée was born in Paris, September 28, 1803. His father, a Norman, was a professor in the École des Beaux-Arts, and his mother, Anne Moreau, who had English blood in her veins, was also an artist. Prosper attended the Collège Henri IV, and in the home of his parents met the literati of the day. He undertook the study of law, but soon abandoned it, and spent some years in observing life while journeying abroad. He made much of ancient and modern languages, becoming especially proficient in Spanish. Upon his return to Paris he served in public office, and held the post of Inspector General of Public Monuments until declining health compelled him to retire. He was elected to several learned societies and became a commander of the Legion of Honor, and, in 1844, a member of the French Academy. Nine years later he was made a Senator of France, an honor he owed to the friendship of the Empress Eugénie. He died at Cannes on the 23rd of September, 1870, at the age of sixty-seven.

Prosper Mérimée was a successful poet, translator, novelist, and short-story writer. His translations of the Russian novelists have been pronounced excellent. “Colomba” is a romantic novelette of singular power and charm. His most famous short-stories are “The Taking of the Redoubt,” “Tamango,” “Federigo,” “The Etruscan Vase,” “The Vision of Charles XI,” “The Venus of Ille,” “The Pearl of Toledo,” “Carmen” (on which Bizet’s opera is founded), “Arsène Guillot,” and “Mateo Falcone”; which follows, in a translation by the editor of this volume. It was first published in the Revue de Paris, May, 1829.

Among French masters of the short-story, Mérimée easily holds place in the first rank. Both personality and genius are his, and both well repay careful study. He was an alert student of history, to whom its anecdotal side made strongest appeal. The detached, impersonal, unprejudiced attitude of the historian is seen in his short-stories, for he tells his narrative impartially, with a sort of take-it-or-leave-it air, allowing the story to make its own appeal without any special pleading on his part. His story-telling manner is, therefore, one of ironical coldness. He delighted to tell his tales in the matter-of-fact manner of the casual traveller who has picked up a good yarn and passes it on just as it was told him. And this literary attitude was a reflex of his personality. To him, to love deeply was to endure pain, to follow impulse was to court trouble, to cherish enthusiasms was to delude the mind, so he schooled himself to appear impassive. Yet now and then in his lucid and clear-cut stories, as in his urbane life, a certain sweetness is revealed which speaks alluringly of the tender spirit within.

All my life I have sought to free myself from prejudices, to be a citizen of the world before being a Frenchman, but now all these garments of philosophy are nothing to me. To-day I bleed for the wounds of the foolish French, I mourn for their humiliations, and, however ungrateful and absurd they may be, I love them still.—Prosper Mérimée, letter to Madame de Beaulaincourt (Marquise de Castellane), written, ten days before his death, on hearing from his friend Thiers that the disaster of Sedan was irreparable and that the Empire was a thing of the past.

A gallant man and a gentleman, he has had the reward he would have wished. He has been discreetly and intimately enjoyed by delicate tastes.... It was his rare talent to give us those limpid, rapid, full tales, that one reads in an hour, re-reads in a day, which fill the memory and occupy the thoughts forever.—Émile Faguet, quoted by Grace King, in C. D. Warner’s Library of the World’s Best Literature.

Colomba, Mateo Falcone, La Double Méprise, La Vénus d’Ille, L’Enlèvement de la Redoute, Lokis, have equals, but no superiors, either in French prose fiction or in French prose. Grasp of human character, reserved but masterly description of scenery, delicate analysis of motive, ability to represent the supernatural, pathos, grandeur, simple narrative excellence, appear turn by turn in these wonderful pieces, as they appear hardly anywhere else.—George Saintsbury, A Short History of French Literature.

While inferior to Stendhal as a psychologist, notwithstanding the keenness of his analysis, he excels him in opening out and developing action, and in composing a work whose parts hang well together. In addition he possesses a “literary” style,—not the style of an algebraist, but that of an exact, self-sustained writer. He attains the perfection of form in his particular line. Nearly all his stories are masterpieces of that rather dry and hard, though forceful, nervous, and pressing style, which constitutes him one of the most original and most characteristic novelists of the century.—Georges Pellissier, The Literary Movement in France.

I do not scruple to apply the word great to Mérimée, a word which is not to be used lightly, but of which he is thoroughly deserving. His style is the purest and clearest of our century; no better model could possibly be found for our present generation. His prose, to my mind, together with that of Musset, Fromentin, and Renan, is the most beautiful modern prose which has ever been written in the French language. Like the great classics of the 17th century, he never wrote a passage merely to please the eye or the ear; his sole aim was to express thought, and the colour of his language, which is so pre-eminently true to nature, is of a rare sobriety; he never studies effect, and, nevertheless, invariably attains it.—Edouard Grenier, Literary Reminiscences.

FURTHER REFERENCES FOR READING ON MÉRIMÉE

Miscellaneous Studies, Walter Pater (1895); Modern French Literature, Benjamin W. Wells (1896); Contes et Nouvelles, by Prosper Mérimée, edited by J. E. Michell (1907); A Century of French Fiction, Benjamin W. Wells (1898); Prosper Mérimée, Arthur Symonds, in A Century of French Romance, edited by Edmund W. Gosse (1901); Six Masters in Disillusion, Algar Therold (1909).

MATEO FALCONE

BY PROSPER MÉRIMÉE

Translation by The Editor

Note: The technical terms used in the marginal notes explanatory of the short-stories throughout this work follow the terminology used and treated fully in the present author’s Writing the Short-Story.

A story of local-color because the Corsican customs determine the destinies of the characters. It is equally a character-study and a psychological study. Note how characters harmonize with setting, throughout.

As one comes out of Porto-Vecchio, and turns northwest toward the center of the island, the ground is seen to rise quite rapidly, and after three hours’ walk by tortuous paths, blocked by large masses of rocks, and sometimes cut by ravines, the traveler finds himself on the edge of a very extensive maquis. This bush is the home of the Corsican shepherds, and of whomsoever has come into conflict with the law. It is well known that the Corsican laborer, to spare himself the trouble of fertilizing his lands, sets fire to a certain stretch of forest; so much the worse if the flames spread further than is needed;Setting is minutely given, yet not diffusely. whatever happens, he is sure to have a good harvest by sowing upon this ground, enriched by the ashes of the very trees which it grows. When the corn is plucked, he leaves the straw, because it is too much trouble to gather it. The roots, which have remained in the ground without being harmed, sprout in the following spring into very thick shoots, which in a few years attain a height of seven or eight feet. This sort of underwood it is that they call maquis. It is composed of different kinds of trees and shrubs, all mixed and tangled, just as they were planted by God. Only with the hatchet in hand can a man open a passage, and there are maquis so dense and so tufted that even the wild sheep can not penetrate them.

One of Mérimée’s deft personal touches, as though he were telling the story to Corsicans.

2. If you have killed a man, go into the maquis of Porto-Vecchio, and with a good gun and powder and ball, you will live there in safety. Do not forget a brown cloak with a Why “brown”? hood, which serves as a coverlet and a mattress. The shepherds will give you milk, The vendetta. See Mérimée’s novelette Colomba.cheese, and chestnuts, and you will have nothing to fear from justice, nor from the relatives of the dead man, unless it be when you have to go down into the town to renew your munitions.

Sense of reality. Setting becomes specific. Begins with social characterization.

3. The house of Mateo Falcone, when I was in Corsica in 18—, was half a league from this maquis. He was a comparatively rich man for that country, living nobly, Note force of “nobly.”that is to say, without doing anything, on the products of his herds, which the shepherds, a species of nomads, led to pasture here and there on the mountains. When I saw him, two years after the event which I am about to relate, he seemed to me about fifty years of age at the most. Proceeds to physical characterization. Picture a small, but robust man, with curly hair black as jet, and aquiline nose, lips thin, large and animated eyes, and a deeply tanned complexion. Hint of climax. His skill in shooting was considered extraordinary, even in his country, where there were so many good shots. Illustrative anecdotes.For example, Mateo would never fire on a sheep with buckshot, but at a hundred and twenty paces he would bring it down with a bullet in its head, or in the shoulder, as he chose. At night he could use his gun as easily as by day, and they told me the following example of his skill, which will perhaps seem incredible to those who have not traveled in Corsica. At eighty paces, a lighted candle was placed behind a transparent piece of paper as large as a plate. He took aim, then the candle was extinguished, and after a moment in the most complete darkness, he shot and pierced the transparency three times out of four.

Advances to moral characterization.

4. With a talent so surpassing, Mateo Falcone had gained a great reputation. He was said to be as loyal a friend as he was dangerous an enemy. Otherwise obliging and charitable, he lived at peace with everyone in the district of Porto-Vecchio. But they tell of him that when at Corte, where he had gotten a wife, he had very vigorously freed himself of a rival who was reputed to be as redoubtable in war as in love; Further anecdote.at all events, people attributed to Mateo a certain gunshot which surprised this rival as he was shaving before a small mirror hung in his window.

Primitive ideals.

5. The affair having been hushed up, Mateo married. His wife Giuseppa had first presented him with three daughters (which enraged him), but finally a son came, Central character introduced unobtrusively.whom he named Fortunato: he was the hope of the family, the inheritor of the name. Vendetta and clan spirit.The girls were well married; their father could reckon, in case of need, upon the poniards and rifles of his sons-in-law. Introduction ends.The son was only ten years old, but he was already showing signs of a promising disposition.

Action Begins. Foundation for crisis. First Plot Incident. (A plot incident is essential to a plot; to change it would be to alter the plot materially.) An old-style literary device.

6. On a certain day in autumn, Mateo and his wife set out early to visit one of their flocks in a clearing of maquis. Little Fortunato wished to accompany them, but the clearing was too far away; besides, someone must stay to guard the house; so the father refused: we shall soon see if he had no occasion to repent.

Setting in contrast with crisis about to appear.

7. He had been gone for some hours, and little Fortunato was tranquilly stretched out in the sunshine, looking at the blue mountains, and thinking that on the next Sunday he would be going to town to dine with his uncle the corporal,[13] All the footnotes are by Mérimée. when he was suddenly interrupted in his meditations by the firing of a gun. He got up and turned toward that side of the plain from which the sound had Action now supersedes setting. come. Other gunshots followed, fired at irregular intervals, and each time they came nearer and nearer. Note force of “irregular.” At last on the path which led from the plain to Mateo’s house, appeared a man wearing a cap pointed like those worn by the mountaineers. Dramatic introduction of a leading character, and preparation for first crisis.He was bearded and covered with rags, and dragged himself along with difficulty by leaning on his gun. Second Plot Incident.He had just received a gunshot wound in the thigh.

8. This man was a bandit,[14] who having set out at night to get some powder from the town, had fallen on the way into an ambush of Corsican soldiers.[15] After a vigorous defense he had succeeded in making his retreat, hotly pursued and skirmishing from rock to rock. But he had gained only a little on the soldiers, and his wound made it hopeless for him to reach the maquis before being overtaken.

9. He approached Fortunato and said to him:

Crisp dialogue gives feeling of intensity.

10. “You are the son of Mateo Falcone?”

11. “Yes.”

12. “I am Gianetto Sanpiero. I am pursued by the yellow collars.[16] Hide me, for I can go no further.”

13. “And what will my father say if I hide you without his permission?”

14. “He will say that you have done right.”

15. “How do you know?”

16. “Hide me quickly; they are coming.”

17. “Wait till my father comes.”

18. “How can I wait! A curse upon it! They will be here in five minutes. Come, hide me, or I will kill you.”

Note the lad’s constant coolness, and sly calculation.

19. Fortunato answered him with the utmost coolness:

20. “Your gun is empty, and there are no more cartridges in your carchera.”[17]

21. “I have my stiletto.”

22. “But could you run as fast as I can?”

23. He gave a leap, and put himself out of reach.

The right of asylum to kin is sacred to primitive peoples.

24. “You are no son of Mateo Falcone! Will you then allow me to be taken in front of your home?”

25. The child seemed to be touched.Note force of “seemed.”

26. “What will you give me if I hide you?” he asked him, drawing nearer.

Crisis particularized. Plot Incident Particularized.

27. The fugitive felt in the leather pouch that hung at his belt, and took out a five-franc piece, which he had reserved, no doubt, for powder. Fortunato smiled at sight of the piece Shows value of the reward. of money, and seizing hold of it, he said to Gianetto:

28. “Fear nothing!”Revelation of character.

Resolution of first crisis.

29. He quickly made a large hole in a haystack which stood near by the house, Gianetto crouched down in it, and the child covered him up in such a way as to leave a little space for breathing, without making it possible for any one to suspect that the hay concealed a man. He acted, still further, with the cunning of a tricky savage. Author’s real estimate of the boy.He went and brought a cat and her kittens, and set them on top of the haystack to make believe that it had not been recently touched. Then noticing the blood-stains on the path near the house, he carefully covered them with dust. This done, he lay down again in the sun with the utmost calmness.

Third Plot Incident. See ¶12.

30. Some minutes later six men in brown uniforms with yellow collars, commanded by an adjutant, stood before Mateo’s door. This adjutant was a distant relative of Falcone—for in Corsica more remote degreesA deputy in command. of relationship are recognized than elsewhere. Note complication by this relationship.His name was Tidora Gamba; he was an energetic man, greatly feared by the banditti, many of whom he had already hunted down.

Crisis recurs.

31. “Good day, little cousin,” he said, coming up to Fortunato. “How you have grown! Have you seen a man passing just now?”

Cunning in character further revealed.

32. “Oh, I am not so tall as you, Cousin,” the child replied with a foolish look.

33. “That time’s coming. But have you not seen a man pass by?—Tell me.”

34. “If I have seen a man pass by?”

35. “Yes, a man with a pointed cap and a waistcoat embroidered in red and yellow?”

36. “A man with a pointed cap and a waistcoat embroidered in red and yellow?”

37. “Yes; answer quickly, and don’t repeat my questions.”

38. “This morning Monsieur le Curé passed our door on his horse Piero. He asked me how papa was, and I told him—”

Suspense.

39. “Ah, you little rascal, you are making game of me! Tell me at once which way Gianetto went, for it is he that we are after, and I am certain he took this path.”

40. “How do you know that?”

41. “How do I know that? I know you have seen him.”

Child’s crafty nature increasingly disclosed.

42. “Does one see passers-by when one is asleep?”

43. “You were not asleep, you little demon; the gunshots would have waked you.”

44. “You think, then, Cousin, that your guns make a great noise? My father’s rifle makes much more.”

45. “May the devil confound you, you young scamp! I am sure enough that you have seen Gianetto. Perhaps you have even hidden him. Here, comrades, go into this house, and see if our man is not there. He could walk only on one foot, and he has too much good sense, the rascal, to have tried to reach the maquis limping. Besides, the marks of blood stop here.”

Sly appeal to the fear inspired by Mateo’s reputation.

46. “Whatever will papa say!” asked Fortunato, with a chuckle; “what will he say when he finds out that his house has been entered while he was away!”

Note use of suspense throughout. The story is one long crisis.

47. “Good-for-nothing!” cried the adjutant Gamba, taking him by the ear, “do you know that I am able to make you change your tune? Perhaps when I have given you a score or more thwacks with the flat of a sword, you will speak at last!”

48. But Fortunato still laughed derisively.

49. “My father is Mateo Falcone!” he said with energy.

50. “Do you know, you little rogue, that I can carry you off to Corte, or to Bastia? I’ll make you sleep in a dungeon, on a pallet of straw, your feet in irons, and I’ll have you guillotined, if you don’t tell me where Gianetto Sanpiero is.”

51. The child burst out laughing at this foolish threat. He only repeated:

52. “My father is Mateo Falcone!”

Compare with ¶4 and ¶49.

53. “Adjutant,” whispered one of the voltigeurs, “we’d better not embroil ourselves with Mateo.”

Setting is thus interwoven with the story, though slightly.

54. Gamba seemed evidently embarrassed. He talked in a low voice with his soldiers, who had already been through the house. It was not a lengthy operation, for the cabin of a Corsican consists of only a single square room. The furniture comprises a table, some benches, a few boxes, and utensils for hunting and housekeeping. Meanwhile, little Fortunato caressed his cat, Character revelation.and seemed maliciously to enjoy the embarrassment of the voltigeurs and his cousin.

Suspense augmented.

55. One soldier came up to the haystack. He looked at the cat and carelessly gave a dig at the hay with his bayonet, shrugging his shoulders as if he thought the precaution were ridiculous. Nothing stirred, and the face of the child did not betray the least emotion.

More crafty coolness.

56. The adjutant and his troop were in despair; they were looking seriously toward the edge of the plain, as though disposed to return the way they had come; The turn in the plot.when their chief—convinced that threats would produce no effect upon the son of Falcone—thought he would make Foundation for main crisis. one last effort by trying the power of cajoleries and presents.

57. “Little Cousin,” he said, “you seem to be a wide-awake young fellow enough. You will get on! But you play a mean trick with me; and, if I did not fear to give pain to my cousin Mateo, devil take me, I’d carry you off with me!”

58. “Bah!”

59. “But, when my cousin returns I shall relate to him the whole affair, and for your having gone to the trouble to tell me a lie, he will give you the whip till he draws blood.”

60. “Do you know that?”

61. “You’ll find out! But, see here—be a good lad, and I’ll give you something.”

62. “I, my Cousin, will give you some advice—it is, that if you delay any more Gianetto will reach the maquis, then it will take a cleverer fellow to go and hunt for him.”

Main crisis augmented.

63. The adjutant drew from his pocket a silver watch worth quite ten crowns; and seeing how the little Fortunato’s eyes sparkled when hePlot Incident Particularized. looked at it, he said, as he held the watch suspended at the end of its steel chain:

Character appeal.

64. “You rogue! you would like very well to have such a watch as this hung round your neck, and to go and promenade the streets of Porto-Vecchio, proud as a peacock; people would ask you, ‘What time is it?’ and you would reply, ‘Look at my watch!’”

65. “When I am grown up, my uncle the corporal will give me a watch.”

66. “Yes; but your uncle’s son has one already—not such a fine one as this, it is true—of course, he is younger than you.”

67. The child sighed.

68. “Well, would you like this watch, little Cousin?”

Suspense.

69. Fortunato, ogling the watch out of the corner of his eyes, looked just as a cat does when they suddenly offer it a chicken. Because it is afraid a joke is being played on it, it dares not pounce upon its prey, and from time to time it turns away its eyes so as not to succumb to the temptation;Illustration. but it constantly licks its chops, as if to say to its master, “But your joke is a cruel one!”

70. However, the adjutant Gamba seemed to be offering the watch in good faith. Fortunato did not hold out his hand, but he said to him with a bitter smile:

71. “Why do you jest with me?”

72. “By Heaven, I am not joking! Only tell me where Gianetto is and this watch is yours.”

Compare with ¶67.

73. Fortunato allowed an incredulous sigh to escape him; and, fixing his black eyes on those of the adjutant, he sought to find in them the faith he wished to have in his words.

A typical Latin protest.

74. “May I lose my epaulets,” cried the adjutant, “if I do not give you the watch on these terms! My comrades are witnesses, and I cannot go back on my word!”

75. So speaking, he held the watch nearer and nearer until it almost touched the pale cheeks of the child, whose face showed plainly the combat going on in his heart between covetousness and his respect for the laws of hospitality. A key to the plot.His bare breast heaved violently, and he seemed to be almost stifling. All the time the watch dangled and turned, and sometimes grazed the tip of his nose. Main Crisis.At length, little by little, his right hand lifted toward the watch, the ends of his fingers touched it, and it rested wholly on his palm, except that the adjutant still loosely held the end of the chain. The face was blue, the case was newly polished—in the sunshine it seemed to be all afire. The temptation was too strong.

Crisis resolved and Downward Action Begins. Henceforward we see the Results of crisis, leading to the Climax.

76. So Fortunato raised his left hand and with his thumb pointed over his shoulder to the haystack against which he was standing. The adjutant understood him immediately. He let go the end of the chain; Fortunato felt himself sole possessor of the watch. Still sly.He jumped up with the agility of a deer, and moved ten paces away from the stack, which the voltigeurs at once began to overturn.

77. It was not long before they saw the hay move, and a bleeding man, poniard in hand, came forth. But when he tried to rise to his feet, his stiffening wound would not permit him to stand. He fell down. The adjutant threw himself upon him and snatched away his stiletto. Speedily, he was securely bound, in spite of his resistance.

78. Gianetto, laid on the ground and tied like a bundle of fagots, turned his head toward Fortunato, who had drawn nearer.

First Contributory Incident. (A contributory incident might be changed or even omitted without vitally changing the plot.)

79. “Son of—,” he said to him with more contempt than anger.

Tardy attempt to appear sincere. His contempt is all for Fortunato.

80. The boy threw to him the silver-piece that he had received from him, feeling conscious that he no longer merited it; but the outlaw seemed not to notice this action. He said to the adjutant in a perfectly cool voice:

Second Contributory Incident.

81. “My dear Gamba, I am not able to walk; you will be obliged to carry me to the town.”

82. “You could run as fast as a kid just now,” retorted his cruel captor. “But be easy, I am so glad to have caught you that I could carry you for a league on my own back without being tired. All the same, my friend, we are going to make a litter for you out of some branches and your cloak, and at the farm at Crespoli we shall find some horses.”

Character revelation. Let-down in tension.

83. “Good!” said the prisoner. “You had better also put a little straw on your litter that I may travel more easily.”

New and resultant crisis. Fourth Plot Incident.

84. While the voltigeurs were occupied, some making a sort of stretcher out of chestnut boughs, and others dressing Gianetto’s wound, Mateo Falcone and his wife suddenly appeared in a bend of the path which led from the maquis. Contrast to tragic spirit of the story.The wife advanced, bending laboriously under an enormous bag of chestnuts, while her husband came up jauntily, carrying in his hand only a gun, while another was slung over his shoulder, Local color.for it is unworthy of a man to carry any other burden than his weapons.

85. At sight of the soldiers, Mateo’s first thought was that they had come to arrest him. But why that idea? Had he any quarrel with the law? No. He bore a good reputation. He was, as they say, particularly well thought of; but he was a Corsican, a mountaineer, and there are but few Corsican mountaineers who, if they scrutinize their memories well, cannot find some pecadillo—some gunshot, some dagger thrust, or some similar bagatelle. “Bagatelle” discloses the Corsican attitude.Mateo, more than most, had a clear conscience, for it was fully ten years since he had pointed his gun against a man; but all the same he was prudent, and he put himself in position to make a good defense, if need be.

To reload his weapons, as appears in ¶87.

86. “Wife,” said he to Giuseppa, “put down your sack and keep yourself in readiness.”

87. She obeyed on the instant. He gave her the gun that was slung over his shoulder, and which would likely cause him inconvenience. Suspense.He cocked the one he had in his hand and advanced slowly toward the house, skirting the trees which bordered the path, and ready at the least hostile demonstration to throw himself behind the largest trunk, whence he could fire from cover. His wife walked close behind him, holding his spare gun and his cartridge box. Local color.The duty of a good housewife, in case of conflict, is to reload her husband’s weapons.

Development of fourth incident.

88. On the other side, the adjutant was very uneasy at sight of Mateo advancing thus upon them with measured steps, his gun forward and his finger on the trigger.

Key.

89. “If it should chance,” thought he, “that Gianetto is related to Mateo, or that he is his friend, and he intends to protect him, the bullets of his two guns will come to two of us A fight would ensue. as sure as a letter to the post, and if he should aim at me, good-bye to our kinship!”

Note force of “alone.”

90. In this perplexity, he put on a courageous front and went forward alone toward Mateo to tell him of the matter, while greeting him like an old acquaintance; but the brief space that separated him from Mateo seemed to him terribly long.

Note constraint.

91. “Hello! Ah! my old comrade,” he called out. “How are you, old fellow? It’s I, Gamba, your cousin.”

Resolution of suspense.

92. Mateo, without replying a word, stopped, and while the other was speaking he imperceptibly raised the muzzle of his rifle in such a manner that it was pointing heavenward by the time the adjutant came up to him.

93. “Good day, brother,”[18] said the adjutant, holding out his hand. “It’s a very long time since I’ve seen you.”

94. “Good day, brother.”

Diminutive for Giuseppa.

95. “I just came in, while passing, to say ‘good day’ to you and my cousin Pepa. We have had a long journey to-day; but we must not complain of fatigue, There is something manlike in most of Mérimée’s female characters.for we have taken a famous prize. We have just got hold of Gianetto Sanpiero.”

96. “God be praised!” exclaimed Giuseppa. “He stole one of our milch goats last week.”

Character contrast.

97. These words rejoiced Gamba.

98. “Poor devil!” said Mateo. “He was hungry.”

New crisis. Preparation for climax.

99. “The fellow defended himself like a lion,” pursued the adjutant, slightly mortified. “He killed one of the men, and, not content with that, he broke Corporal Chardon’s arm; but that is not such a great disaster, for he is nothing but a Frenchman.... Then he hid himself so cleverly that the devil would not have been able to find him. Without my little cousin Fortunato, I should never have discovered him.”

100. “Fortunato!” cried Mateo.

101. “Fortunato!” repeated Giuseppa.

102. “Yes, Gianetto was hidden way down in your haystack; but my little cousin showed me his trick. So I will speak of him to his uncle the corporal, that he may send him a fine present for his trouble. And his name and yours will be in the report which I shall send to Monsieur l’avocat général.”

103. “Malediction!” said Mateo under his breath.

Misunderstanding adds to complication.

104. They had now rejoined the detachment. Gianetto was already laid on the litter and they were ready to leave. When he saw Mateo in the company of Gamba, he smiled a strange smile; then, turning himself toward the door of the house, he spat on the threshold as he cried out:

105. “House of a traitor!”

106. No one but a man who had made up his mind to die would have dared to utter the word “traitor” as applying to Falcone. Key to plot. Fifth Plot Incident.One good stroke of the dagger, which would not need to be repeated, would have immediately repaid the insult. But Mateo made no other gesture than that of putting his hand to his head like a dazed man.

Third Contributory Incident.

107. Fortunato had gone into the house upon seeing his father come up. He reappeared shortly with a jug of milk, which he offered with Is this repentance, fear, hypocrisy, or an attempt to placate his father? downcast eyes to Gianetto. “Keep away from me!” cried the outlaw in a voice of thunder.

108. Then turning to one of the voltigeurs,

109. “Comrade, give me a drink of water,” he said.

Delineation of mood by suggestion.

110. The soldier placed the gourd in his hands, and the bandit drank the water given him by a man with whom he had just exchanged gunshots. He then asked that they would tie his hands across his breast instead of having them behind his back.

111. “I prefer,” he said, “to lie down at my ease.”

Fourth Contributory Incident.

112. When they had adjusted them to his satisfaction, the adjutant gave the signal to start, said adieu to Mateo—who answered never a word—and went down at a quick pace toward the plain.

Suspense.

113. Some ten minutes passed before Mateo opened his mouth. The child looked with an uneasy eye first at his mother, then at his father, who, leaning on his gun, was gazing at him with a gaze of concentrated wrath.

Preparation for Climax. Sixth and Final Plot Incident.

114. “You begin well,” said Mateo at last, in a voice calm but terrifying to those who knew the man.

115. “Father!” exclaimed the child with tears in his eyes, drawing near as if to fall upon his knees.

116. But Mateo only cried out:

117. “Away from me!”

118. The child stopped and began to sob, standing motionless a few steps from his father.

119. Giuseppa came near. She had just perceived the chain of the watch dangling about from Fortunato’s blouse.

Contrast with ¶114.

120. “Who gave you that watch?” she asked him severely.

Note the sly use of “cousin.”

121. “My cousin the adjutant.”

Fifth Contributory Incident.

122. Falcone seized the watch, and, throwing it violently against a stone, broke it into a thousand pieces.

123. “Woman,” he said, “this child—is he mine?”

124. Giuseppa’s brown cheeks flamed brick-red.

125. “What are you saying, Mateo? Do you know to whom you are speaking?”

Key.

126. “Well, this child is the first of his race who has committed a treason.”

Decision, and foundation for final crisis.

127. Fortunato’s sobs and hiccoughs redoubled, and Falcone kept his lynx-eyes always fixed upon him. At length he struck the ground with the butt of his gun; Full Resultant Crisis.then he flung it across his shoulder and, calling to Fortunato to follow him, retook the way to the maquis. The child obeyed.

128. Giuseppa ran after Mateo, and seized him by the arm.

129. “He is your son,” she said to him in a trembling voice, fixing her black eyes on those of her husband, as though to read what was passing through his mind.

Note the double meaning.

130. “Let me go,” replied Mateo: “I am his father.”

131. Giuseppa embraced her son, and went back crying into the hut. She threw herself on her knees before an image of the Virgin, and prayed with fervor.

Forecast.

132. Meanwhile, Falcone had walked about two-hundred yards along the path, and stopped at a little ravine, which he descended. He sounded the earth with the butt of his gun and found it soft and easy to dig. The spot seemed suitable for his design.

Suspense.

133. “Fortunato, go near to that large rock.”

134. The boy did as he was commanded, then he knelt down.

135. “Say your prayers.”

136. “Father, Father, do not kill me!”

137. “Say your prayers!” repeated Mateo in a terrible voice.

“Our Father, etc.,” “I believe in God, etc.”

138. The child, all stammering and sobbing, repeated the Pater and the Credo. The father, in a firm voice responded Amen at the close of each prayer.

139. “Are those all the prayers that you know?”

“Hail Mary, etc.” A liturgical prayer.

140. “I also know the Ave Maria, and the Litany that my aunt taught me, Father.”

141. “It is rather long, but it doesn’t matter.”

Note force of “achieved.”

142. The child achieved the Litany in a faint voice.

143. “Have you finished?”

Contrast with his former vicious “coolness.”

144. “Oh, Father, Father, mercy! Pardon me! I will never do it again! I will beg my cousin the corporal with all my might for mercy for Gianetto!”

145. He went on speaking; Mateo loaded his rifle and took aim as he said:

146. “May God forgive you!”

Full Climax and Denouement.

147. The boy made a desperate effort to get up and clasp his father’s knees, but he had not time. Mateo fired, and Fortunato fell dead.

Note force of “throwing.”

148. Without throwing a single glance at the body, Mateo returned to his house to fetch a spade with which to bury his son. He had taken but a few steps when he met Giuseppa, who had run out, alarmed by the sound of the firing.

149. “What have you done?”

150. “Justice!”

151. “Where is he?”

Sixth Contributory Incident. Swift conclusion. Character revelation.

152. “In the ravine; I am going to bury him.

He died a Christian; I shall have a mass sung for him.

Let some one tell my son-in-law Tiodoro Bianchi to come and live with us.”

STEVENSON AND HIS WRITINGS

Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson, as he was baptized, was born November 13, 1850, at Edinburgh, Scotland, of Scotch parents. He entered Edinburgh University when he was seventeen, intending to learn his father’s profession, civil engineering—though he had always longed to be a writer, having dictated books at the precocious ages of six, seven, and nine. At twenty-one he decided to study law, and four years later passed the bar examination in his native city. In 1880 he married Mrs. Osbourne, with whose son, Lloyd, he collaborated in the writing of several stories. Stevenson’s health, which was never robust, sent him on many journeys in search of strength—to the European continent, several times to the United States, and once on a two years’ voyage to the South Seas. In 1890 he finally settled in Samoa, where he died at his home, Vailima, December 3, 1894. He was buried on the nearby summit of Mount Vaea.

Stevenson was a brilliant novelist, essayist, poet, and short-story writer. Treasure Island, Kidnapped, The Master of Ballantrae, and Weir of Hermiston—the last of which he left unfinished—are his best novels. His journeys were chronicled by such delightful travel-sketches as An Inland Voyage, Travels With a Donkey, and The Silverado Squatters. A Child’s Garden of Verse contains his best poems. His most noteworthy essays are found in Memories and Portraits, and Familiar Studies of Men and Books. Most famous among his short-stories are “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (a novelette in length), “The Pavilion on the Links,” “Thrawn Janet,” “Will o’ the Mill,” “The Sire de Malétroit’s Door,” “The Merry Men,” “Markheim,” published first in Unwin’s Annual, London, 1885, and given in this volume in full, and “A Lodging for the Night,” which follows entire. It was first published in The Temple Bar magazine, October, 1877.

Stevenson was a supreme craftsman. No writer of the short-story in English, except Edgar Allan Poe, was so conscious of his art and so gifted to create up to the measure of his orderly knowledge. In criticism of the story-teller’s art, Poe was the greater originator, Stevenson the more brilliant generalizer; Poe was the deeper, Stevenson the broader; Poe’s opinions as to form grew largely out of his own consciousness, and shaped his practices—they were arrived at deductively: Stevenson’s standards grew as his creations shaped themselves, and were measurably molded by his own writings—they were examples of inductive reasoning. Thus Stevenson was doubly equipped to produce incomparably the greatest group of short-stories ever written by a Briton before the days of Kipling, and some sound critics will dispute even this reservation. In charm, in dash of style, in a sense of form, in pure romantic spirit, and in penetrating human interest, Stevenson ranks among the ten greatest short-story-tellers of his era.

I wonder if any one had ever more energy upon so little strength?—R. L. Stevenson, Vailima Letters.

In the highest achievements of the art of words, the dramatic and the pictorial, the moral and romantic interest, rise and fall together by a common and organic law. Situation is animated with passion, passion clothed upon with situation. Neither exists for itself, but each inheres indissolubly with the other. This is high art; and not only the highest art possible in words, but the highest art of all, since it combines the greatest mass and diversity of the elements of truth and pleasure. Such are epics, and the few prose tales that have the epic weight.—R. L. Stevenson, A Gossip on Romance.

The stories of Stevenson exhibit a double union, as admirable as it is rare. They exhibit the union of splendid material with the most delicate skill in language; and they exhibit the union of thrilling events with a remarkable power of psychological analysis.—William Lyon Phelps, Essays on Modern Novelists.

Mr. Stevenson enjoys the reputation of being the modern representative of the romantic school of fiction. There are others of high repute, for romanticism is now the vogue, but there is hardly any other whose name we would care to link with that of Walter Scott.—William H. Sheran, Handbook of Literary Criticism.

Perhaps the first quality in Mr. Stevenson’s works, now so many and so various, which strikes a reader, is the buoyancy, the survival of the child in him. He has told the world often, in prose and verse, how vivid are his memories of his own infancy.... The peculiarity of Mr. Stevenson is not only to have been a fantastic child, and to retain, in maturity, that fantasy ripened into imagination: he has also kept up the habit of dramatising everything, of playing, half consciously, many parts, of making the world “an unsubstantial fairy place....” It is the eternal child that drives him to seek adventures and to sojourn among beach-combers and savages.—Andrew Lang, Essays in Little.

It has been stated that the finer qualities of Stevenson are called out by the psychological romance on native soil. He did some brilliant and engaging work of foreign setting and motive.... Judged as art, “The Bottle Imp” and “The Beach of Falesa” are among the triumphs of ethnic interpretation, let alone their more external charms of story. And another masterpiece of foreign setting, “A Lodging for the Night,” is further proof of Stevenson’s ability to use other than Scotch motives for the materials of his art.... Few novelists of any race have beaten this wandering Scot in the power of representing character and envisaging it, and there can hardly be successful characterization without this allied power of creating atmosphere.—Richard Burton, Masters of the English Novel.

Not until 1877, and Robert Louis Stevenson’s first published narrative, does any Englishman of real caliber show both desire and ability to do something new with the short story. This narrative was “A Lodging for the Night,” published in Temple Bar for October.... “A Lodging for the Night” is as clearly and consciously an impressionistic short story as George Meredith’s contemporary novelettes are not of that category; the two stories which followed (“Will o’ the Mill” and “The Sire de Malétroit’s Door”) would assure the most timid critic of our generation that here was a master in this department of fiction.... There is “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” that short story thrown over into the form of a detective romance.... Or there is “Markheim,” a story less powerful in execution, but more excellent in workmanship, and an almost ideal example of the impressionistic short story. Flaubert might have written the description of the curiosity shop as the murderer saw it, with its accusing clock-voices, its wavering shadows, from the inner door “a long slit of daylight like a pointing finger.” And Flaubert would have praised the skilful gradation of incident and description, whereby conscience gains and gains in the struggle for Markheim’s mind. But Hawthorne would have been prouder still of the plot—a weak man with a remnant of high ideals suddenly realizing that his curve is plotted and can lead him only downwards.... How like to Hawthorne’s usual way is Stevenson’s determination to make, at all costs, a moral issue the outcome of his story!... “Will o’ the Mill” is like a twice-told tale not only in theme; its whole effect is Hawthornesque. “A Lodging for the Night” has for its kernel a question of ethics.—H. S. Canby, The Short Story in English.

FURTHER REFERENCES FOR READING ON STEVENSON

Mr. Stevenson’s Methods in Fiction, A. Conan Doyle (1890); Robert Louis Stevenson, An Elegy, Richard Le Gallienne (1895); Robert Louis Stevenson, Walter Raleigh (1895); Vailima Letters, to Sidney Colvin (1895); Adventures in Criticism, A. T. Quiller-Couch (1896); Critical Kit-Kats, Edmund W. Gosse (1896); Studies in Two Literatures, Arthur Symons (1897); Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, Graham Balfour (1901); Stevenson’s Attitude to Life, J. F. Genung (1901); Memories of Vailima, Isobel Strong and Lloyd Osbourne (1903); Robert Louis Stevenson, W. R. Nicoll and G. K. Chesterton.

FOR ANALYSIS

A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT

BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

It was late in November, 1456. The snow fell over Paris with rigorous, relentless persistence; sometimes the wind made a sally and scattered it in flying vortices; sometimes there was a lull, and flake after flake descended out of the black night air, silent, circuitous, interminable. To poor people, looking up under moist eyebrows, it seemed a wonder where it all came from. Master Francis Villon had propounded an alternative that afternoon, at a tavern window; was it only Pagan Jupiter plucking geese upon Olympus? or were the holy angels moulting? He was only a poor master of arts, he went on; and as the question somewhat touched upon divinity, he durst not venture to conclude. A silly old priest from Montargis, who was among the company, treated the young rascal to a bottle of wine in honor of the jest and grimaces with which it was accompanied, and swore on his own white beard that he had been just such another irreverent dog when he was Villon’s age.

2. The air was raw and pointed, but not far below freezing; and the flakes were large, damp, and adhesive. The whole city was sheeted up. An army might have marched from end to end and not a footfall given the alarm. If there were any belated birds in heaven, they saw the island like a large white patch, and the bridges like slim white spars, on the black ground of the river. High up overhead the snow settled among the tracery of the cathedral towers. Many a niche was drifted full; many a statue wore a long white bonnet on its grotesque or sainted head. The gargoyles had been transformed into great false noses, drooping toward the point. The crockets were like upright pillows swollen on one side. In the intervals of the wind, there was a dull sound of dripping about the precincts of the church.

3. The cemetery of St. John had taken its own share of the snow. All the graves were decently covered; tall white housetops stood around in grave array; worthy burghers were long ago in bed, be-nightcapped like their domiciles; there was no light in all the neighborhood but a little peep from a lamp that hung swinging in the church choir, and tossed the shadows to and fro in time to its oscillations. The clock was hard on ten when the patrol went by with halberds and a lantern, beating their hands; and they saw nothing suspicious about the cemetery of St. John.

4. Yet there was a small house, backed up against the cemetery wall, which was still awake, and awake to evil purpose, in that snoring district. There was not much to betray it from without; only a stream of warm vapor from the chimney-top, a patch where the snow melted on the roof, and a few half-obliterated footprints at the door. But within, behind the shuttered windows, Master Francis Villon, the poet, and some of the thievish crew with whom he consorted, were keeping the night alive and passing round the bottle.

5. A great pile of living embers diffused a strong and ruddy glow from the arched chimney. Before this straddled Dom Nicolas, the Picardy monk, with his skirts picked up and his fat legs bared to the comfortable warmth. His dilated shadow cut the room in half; and the firelight only escaped on either side of his broad person, and in a little pool between his outspread feet. His face had the beery, bruised appearance of the continual drinker’s; it was covered with a network of congested veins, purple in ordinary circumstances, but now pale violet, for even with his back to the fire the cold pinched him on the other side. His cowl had half fallen back, and made a strange excrescence on either side of his bull neck. So he straddled, grumbling, and cut the room in half with the shadow of his portly frame.

6. On the right, Villon and Guy Tabary were huddled together over a scrap of parchment; Villon making a ballad which he was to call the “Ballad of Roast Fish,” and Tabary spluttering admiration at his shoulder. The poet was a rag of a man, dark, little, and lean, with hollow cheeks and thin black locks. He carried his four-and-twenty years with feverish animation. Greed had made folds about his eyes, evil smiles had puckered his mouth. The wolf and pig struggled together in his face. It was an eloquent, sharp, ugly, earthly countenance. His hands were small and prehensile, with fingers knotted like a cord; and they were continually flickering in front of him in violent and expressive pantomime. As for Tabary, a broad, complacent, admiring imbecility breathed from his squash nose and slobbering lips: he had become a thief, just as he might have become the most decent of burgesses, by the imperious chance that rules the lives of human geese and human donkeys.

7. At the monk’s other hand, Montigny and Thevenin Pensete played a game of chance. About the first there clung some flavor of good birth and training, as about a fallen angel; something long, lithe, and courtly in the person; something aquiline and darkling in the face. Thevenin, poor soul, was in great feather: he had done a good stroke of knavery that afternoon in the Faubourg St. Jacques, and all night he had been gaining from Montigny. A flat smile illuminated his face; his bald head shone rosily in a garland of red curls; his little protuberant stomach shook with silent chucklings as he swept in his gains.

8. “Doubles or quits?” said Thevenin.

9. Montigny nodded grimly.

10. “Some may prefer to dine in state,” wrote Villon, “On bread and cheese on silver plate. Or, or—help me out, Guido!”

11. Tabary giggled.

12. “Or parsley on a golden dish,” scribbled the poet.

13. The wind was freshening without; it drove the snow before it, and sometimes raised its voice in a victorious whoop, and made sepulchral grumblings in the chimney. The cold was growing sharper as the night went on. Villon, protruding his lips, imitated the gust with something between a whistle and a groan. It was an eerie, uncomfortable talent of the poet’s, much detested by the Picardy monk.

14. “Can’t you hear it rattle in the gibbet?” said Villon. “They are all dancing the devil’s jig on nothing, up there. You may dance, my gallants, you’ll be none the warmer! Whew! what a gust! Down went somebody just now! A medlar the fewer on the three-legged medlar-tree!—I say, Dom Nicolas, it’ll be cold to-night on the St. Denis Road?” he asked.

15. Dom Nicolas winked both his big eyes, and seemed to choke upon his Adam’s apple. Montfaucon, the great grisly Paris gibbet, stood hard by the St. Denis Road, and the pleasantry touched him on the raw. As for Tabary, he laughed immoderately over the medlars; he had never heard anything more light-hearted; and he held his sides and crowed. Villon fetched him a fillip on the nose, which turned his mirth into an attack of coughing.

16. “Oh, stop that row,” said Villon, “and think of rhymes to ‘fish.’”

17. “Doubles or quits,” said Montigny, doggedly.

18. “With all my heart,” quoth Thevenin.

19. “Is there any more in that bottle?” asked the monk.

20. “Open another,” said Villon. “How do you ever hope to fill that big hogshead, your body, with little things like bottles? And how do you expect to get to heaven? How many angels, do you fancy, can be spared to carry up a single monk from Picardy? Or do you think yourself another Elias—and they’ll send the coach for you?”

21. “Hominibus impossible,” replied the monk, as he filled his glass.

22. Tabary was in ecstasies.

23. Villon filliped his nose again.

24. “Laugh at my jokes, if you like,” he said.

25. “It was very good,” objected Tabary.

26. Villon made a face at him. “Think of rhymes to ‘fish,’” he said. “What have you to do with Latin? You’ll wish you knew none of it at the great assizes, when the devil calls for Guido Tabary, clericus—the devil with the humpback and red-hot finger-nails. Talking of the devil,” he added, in a whisper, “look at Montigny!”

27. All three peered covertly at the gamester. He did not seem to be enjoying his luck. His mouth was a little to a side; one nostril nearly shut, and the other much inflated. The black dog was on his back, as people say in terrifying nursery metaphor; and he breathed hard under the grewsome burden.

28. “He looks as if he could knife him,” whispered Tabary, with round eyes.

29. The monk shuddered, and turned his face and spread his open hands to the red embers. It was the cold that thus affected Dom Nicolas, and not any excess of moral sensibility.

30. “Come, now,” said Villon—“about this ballad. How does it run so far?” And beating time with his hand he read it aloud to Tabary.

31. They were interrupted at the fourth rhyme by a brief and fatal movement among the gamesters. The round was completed, and Thevenin was just opening his mouth to claim another victory, when Montigny leaped up, swift as an adder, and stabbed him to the heart. The blow took effect before he had time to move. A tremor or two convulsed his frame; his hands opened and shut, his heels rattled on the floor; then his head rolled backward over one shoulder with the eyes wide open; and Thevenin Pensete’s spirit had returned to Him who gave it.

32. Everyone sprung to his feet; but the business was over in two twos. The four living fellows looked at each other in rather a ghastly fashion; the dead man contemplating a corner of the roof with a singular and ugly leer.

33. “My God!” said Tabary; and he began to pray in Latin.

34. Villon broke out into hysterical laughter. He came a step forward and ducked a ridiculous bow at Thevenin, and laughed still louder. Then he sat down suddenly, all of a heap, upon a stool, and continued laughing bitterly as though he would shake himself to pieces.

35. Montigny recovered his composure first.

36. “Let’s see what he has about him,” he remarked; and he picked the dead man’s pockets with a practiced hand, and divided the money into four equal portions on the table. “There’s for you,” he said.

37. The monk received his share with a deep sigh, and a single stealthy glance at the dead Thevenin, who was beginning to sink himself and topple sideways off the chair.

38. “We’re all in for it,” cried Villon, swallowing his mirth. “It’s a hanging job for every man jack of us that’s here—not to speak of those who aren’t.” He made a shocking gesture in the air with his raised right hand, and put out his tongue and threw his head on one side, so as to counterfeit the appearance of one who has been hanged. Then he pocketed his share of the spoil, and executed a shuffle with his feet as if to restore the circulation.

39. Tabary was the last to help himself; he made a dash at the money, and retired to the other end of the apartment.

40. Montigny stuck Thevenin upright in the chair, and drew out a dagger, which was followed by a jet of blood.

41. “You fellows had better be moving,” he said, as he wiped the blade on his victim’s doublet.

42. “I think we had,” returned Villon, with a great gulp. “Damn his fat head!” he broke out. “It sticks in my throat like phlegm. What right has a man to have red hair when he is dead?” And he fell all of a heap again upon the stool, and fairly covered his face with his hands.

43. Montigny and Dom Nicolas laughed aloud, even Tabary feebly chiming in.

44. “Cry baby,” said the monk.

45. “I always said he was a woman,” added Montigny, with a sneer. “Sit up, can’t you?” he went on, giving another shake to the murdered body. “Tread out that fire, Nick!”

46. But Nick was better employed; he was quietly taking Villon’s purse, as the poet sat, limp and trembling, on the stool where he had been making a ballad not three minutes before. Montigny and Tabary dumbly demanded a share of the booty, which the monk silently promised as he passed the little bag into the bosom of his gown. In many ways an artistic nature unfits a man for practical existence.

47. No sooner had the theft been accomplished than Villon shook himself, jumped to his feet, and began helping to scatter and extinguish the embers. Meanwhile Montigny opened the door and cautiously peered into the street. The coast was clear; there was no meddlesome patrol in sight. Still it was judged wiser to slip out severally; and as Villon was himself in a hurry to escape from the neighborhood of the dead Thevenin, and the rest were in a still greater hurry to get rid of him before he should discover the loss of his money, he was the first by general consent to issue forth into the street.

48. The wind had triumphed and swept all the clouds from heaven. Only a few vapors, as thin as moonlight, fleeted rapidly across the stars. It was bitter cold; and by a common optical effect, things seemed almost more definite than in the broadest daylight. The sleeping city was absolutely still; a company of white hoods, a field full of little alps, below the twinkling stars. Villon cursed his fortune. Would it were still snowing! Now, wherever he went, he left an indelible trail behind him on the glittering streets; wherever he went he was still tethered to the house by the cemetery of St. John; wherever he went he must weave, with his own plodding feet, the rope that bound him to the crime and would bind him to the gallows. The leer of the dead man came back to him with a new significance. He snapped his fingers as if to pluck up his own spirits, and choosing a street at random, stepped boldly forward in the snow.

49. Two things preoccupied him as he went; the aspect of the gallows at Montfaucon in this bright, windy phase of the night’s existence, for one; and for another, the look of the dead man with his bald head and garland of red curls. Both struck cold upon his heart, and he kept quickening his pace as if he could escape from unpleasant thoughts by mere fleetness of foot. Sometimes he looked back over his shoulder with a sudden nervous jerk; but he was the only moving thing in the white streets, except when the wind swooped round a corner and threw up the snow, which was beginning to freeze, in spouts of glittering dust.

50. Suddenly he saw, a long way before him, a black clump and a couple of lanterns. The clump was in motion, and the lanterns swung as though carried by men walking. It was a patrol. And though it was merely crossing his line of march, he judged it wiser to get out of eyeshot as speedily as he could. He was not in the humor to be challenged, and he was conscious of making a very conspicuous mark upon the snow. Just on his left hand there stood a great hotel, with some turrets and a large porch before the door; it was half-ruinous, he remembered, and had long stood empty; and so he made three steps of it, and jumped into the shelter of the porch. It was pretty dark inside, after the glimmer of the snowy streets, and he was groping forward with outspread hands, when he stumbled over some substance which offered an indescribable mixture of resistances, hard and soft, firm and loose. His heart gave a leap, and he sprung two steps back and stared dreadfully at the obstacle. Then he gave a little laugh of relief. It was only a woman, and she dead. He knelt beside her to make sure upon this latter point. She was freezing cold, and rigid like a stick. A little ragged finery fluttered in the wind about her hair, and her cheeks had been heavily rouged that same afternoon. Her pockets were quite empty; but in her stocking, underneath the garter, Villon found two of the small coins that went by the name of whites. It was little enough, but it was always something, and the poet was moved with a deep sense of pathos that she should have died before she had spent her money. That seemed to him a dark and pitiful mystery; and he looked from the coins in his hand to the dead woman, and back again to the coins, shaking his head over the riddle of man’s life.

51. Henry V. of England, dying at Vincennes just after he had conquered France, and this poor jade cut off by a cold draught in a great man’s doorway, before she had time to spend her couple of whites—it seemed a cruel way to carry on the world. Two whites would have taken such a little while to squander; and yet it would have been one more good taste in the mouth, one more smack of the lips, before the devil got the soul, and the body was left to birds and vermin. He would like to use all his tallow before the light was blown out and the lantern broken.

52. While these thoughts were passing through his mind, he was feeling, half mechanically, for his purse. Suddenly his heart stopped beating; a feeling of cold scales passed up the back of his legs, and a cold blow seemed to fall upon his scalp. He stood petrified for a moment; then he felt again with one feverish movement; and then his loss burst upon him, and he was covered at once with perspiration. To spend-thrifts money is so living and actual—it is such a thin veil between them and their pleasures! There is only one limit to their fortune—that of time; and a spendthrift with only a few crowns is the Emperor of Rome until they are spent. For such a person to lose his money is to suffer the most shocking reverse, and fall from heaven to hell, from all to nothing, in a breath. And all the more if he has put his head in the halter for it; if he may be hanged to-morrow for that same purse, so dearly earned, so foolishly departed! Villon stood and cursed; he threw the two whites into the street; he shook his fist at heaven; he stamped, and was not horrified to find himself trampling the poor corpse. Then he began rapidly to retrace his steps toward the house beside the cemetery. He had forgotten all fear of the patrol, which was long gone by at any rate, and had no idea but that of his lost purse. It was in vain that he looked right and left upon the snow; nothing was to be seen. He had not dropped it in the streets. Had it fallen in the house? He would have liked dearly to go in and see; but the idea of the grisly occupant unmanned him. And he saw besides, as he drew near, that their efforts to put out the fire had been unsuccessful; on the contrary, it had broken into a blaze, and a changeful light played in the chinks of door and window, and revived his terror for the authorities and Paris gibbet.

53. He returned to the hotel with the porch, and groped about upon the snow for the money he had thrown away in his childish passion. But he could only find one white; the other had probably struck sideways and sunk deeply in. With a single white in his pocket, all his projects for a rousing night in some wild tavern vanished utterly away. And it was not only pleasure that fled laughing from his grasp; positive discomfort, positive pain, attacked him as he stood ruefully before the porch. His perspiration had dried upon him, and although the wind had now fallen, a binding frost was setting in stronger with every hour, and he felt benumbed and sick at heart. What was to be done? Late as was the hour, improbable as was success, he would try the house of his adopted father, the chaplain of St. Benoit.

54. He ran there all the way, and knocked timidly. There was no answer. He knocked again and again, taking heart with every stroke; and at last steps were heard approaching from within. A barred wicket fell open in the iron-studded door, and emitted a gush of yellow light.

55. “Hold up your face to the wicket,” said the chaplain, from within.

56. “It’s only me,” whimpered Villon.

57. “Oh, it’s only you, is it?” returned the chaplain; and he cursed him with foul unpriestly oaths for disturbing him at such an hour, and bade him be off to hell, where he came from.

58. “My hands are blue to the wrist,” pleaded Villon; “my feet are dead and full of twinges; my nose aches with the sharp air; the cold lies at my heart. I may be dead before morning. Only this once, father, and before God, I will never ask again!”

59. “You should have come earlier,” said the ecclesiastic coolly. “Young men require a lesson now and then.” He shut the wicket and retired deliberately into the interior of the house.

60. Villon was beside himself; he beat upon the door with his hands and feet, and shouted hoarsely after the chaplain.

61. “Wormy old fox!” he cried. “If I had my hand under your twist, I would send you flying headlong into the bottomless pit.”

62. A door shut in the interior, faintly audible to the poet down long passages. He passed his hand over his mouth with an oath. And then the humor of the situation struck him, and he laughed and looked lightly up to heaven, where the stars seemed to be winking over his discomfiture.

63. What was to be done? It looked very like a night in the frosty streets. The idea of the dead woman popped into his imagination, and gave him a hearty fright; what had happened to her in the early night might very well happen to him before morning. And he so young! and with such immense possibilities of disorderly amusement before him! He felt quite pathetic over the notion of his own fate, as if it had been some one else’s, and made a little imaginative vignette of the scene in the morning when they should find his body.

64. He passed all his chances under review, turning the white between his thumb and forefinger. Unfortunately he was on bad terms with some old friends who would once have taken pity on him in such a plight. He had lampooned them in verses; he had beaten and cheated them; and yet now, when he was in so close a pinch, he thought there was at least one who might perhaps relent. It was a chance. It was worth trying at least, and he would go and see.

65. On the way two little accidents happened to him which colored his musings in a very different manner. For, first he fell in with the track of a patrol, and walked in it for some hundred yards, although it lay out of his direction. And this spirited him up; at least he had confused his trail; for he was still possessed with the idea of people tracking him all about Paris over the snow, and collaring him next morning before he was awake. The other matter affected him quite differently. He passed a street corner, where, not so long before, a woman and her child had been devoured by wolves. This was just the kind of weather, he reflected, when wolves might take it into their heads to enter Paris again; and a lone man in these deserted streets would run the chance of something worse than a mere scare. He stopped and looked upon the place with an unpleasant interest—it was a center where several lanes intersected each other; and he looked down them all, one after another, and held his breath to listen, lest he should detect some galloping black things on the snow or hear the sound of howling between him and the river. He remembered his mother telling him the story and pointing out the spot, while he was yet a child. His mother! If he only knew where she lived, he might make sure at least of shelter. He determined he would inquire upon the morrow; nay, he would go and see her too, poor old girl! So thinking, he arrived at his destination—his last hope for the night.

66. The house was quite dark, like its neighbors; and yet after a few taps, he heard a movement overhead, a door opening, and a cautious voice asking who was there. The poet named himself in a loud whisper, and waited, not without some trepidation, the result. Nor had he to wait long. A window was suddenly opened, and a pailful of slops splashed down upon the doorstep. Villon had not been unprepared for something of the sort, and had put himself as much in shelter as the nature of the porch admitted; but for all that, he was deplorably drenched below the waist. His hose began to freeze almost at once. Death from cold and exposure stared him in the face; he remembered he was of phthisical tendency, and began coughing tentatively. But the gravity of the danger steadied his nerves. He stopped a few hundred yards from the door where he had been so rudely used, and reflected with his nose. He could only see one way of getting a lodging, and that was to take it. He had noticed a house not far away, which looked as if it might be easily broken into, and thither he betook himself promptly, entertaining himself on the way with the idea of a room still hot, with a table still loaded with the remains of supper, where he might pass the rest of the black hours and whence he should issue, on the morrow, with an armful of valuable plate. He even considered on what viands and what wines he should prefer; and as he was calling the roll of his favorite dainties, roast fish presented itself to his mind with an odd mixture of amusement and horror.

67. “I shall never finish that ballad,” he thought to himself; and then, with another shudder at the recollection, “Oh, damn his fat head!” he repeated fervently, and spat upon the snow.

68. The house in question looked dark at first sight; but as Villon made a preliminary inspection in search of the handiest point of attack, a little twinkle of light caught his eye from behind a curtained window.

69. “The devil!” he thought. “People awake! Some student or some saint, confound the crew! Can’t they get drunk and lie in bed snoring like their neighbors! What’s the good of curfew, and poor devils of bellringers jumping at a rope’s end in bell-towers? What’s the use of day, if people sit up all night! The gripes to them!” He grinned as he saw where his logic was leading him. “Every man to his business, after all,” added he, “and if they’re awake, by the Lord, I may come by a supper honestly for once, and cheat the devil.”

70. He went boldly to the door and knocked with an assured hand. On both previous occasions, he had knocked timidly and with some dread of attracting notice; but now, when he had just discarded the thought of a burglarious entry, knocking at a door seemed a mighty simple and innocent proceeding. The sound of his blows echoed through the house with thin, phantasmal reverberations, as though the house were empty; but these had scarcely died away before a measured tread drew near, a couple of bolts were withdrawn, and one wing was opened broadly, as though no guile or fear of guile were known to those within. A tall figure of a man, muscular and spare, but a little bent, confronted Villon. The head was massive in bulk, but finely sculptured; the nose blunt at the bottom, but refining upward to where it joined a pair of strong and honest eyebrows; the mouth and eyes surrounded with delicate markings, and the whole face based upon a thick white beard, boldly and squarely trimmed. Seen as it was by the light of a flickering hand-lamp, it looked, perhaps, nobler than it had a right to do; but it was a fine face, honorable rather than intelligent, strong, simple, and righteous.

71. “You knock late, sir,” said the old man, in resonant, courteous tones.

72. Villon cringed, and brought up many servile words of apology; at a crisis of this sort, the beggar was uppermost in him, and the man of genius hid his head with confusion.

73. “You are cold,” repeated the old man, “and hungry? Well, step in.” And he ordered him into the house with a noble enough gesture.

74. “Some great seigneur,” thought Villon, as his host, setting down the lamp on the flagged pavement of the entry, shot the bolts once more into their places.

75. “You will pardon me if I go in front,” he said, when this was done; and he preceded the poet up-stairs into a large apartment, warmed with a pan of charcoal and lit by a great lamp hanging from the roof. It was very bare of furniture; only some gold plate on a sideboard; some folios; and a stand of armor between the windows. Some smart tapestry hung upon the walls, representing the crucifixion of our Lord in one piece, and in another a scene of shepherds and shepherdesses by a running stream. Over the chimney was a shield of arms.

76. “Will you seat yourself,” said the old man, “and forgive me if I leave you? I am alone in my house to-night, and if you are to eat I must forage for you myself.”

77. No sooner was his host gone than Villon leaped from the chair on which he had just seated himself, and began examining the room, with the stealth and passion of a cat. He weighed the gold flagons in his hand, opened all the folios, and investigated the arms upon the shield, and the stuff with which the seats were lined. He raised the window curtains, and saw that the windows were set with rich stained glass in figures, so far as he could see, of martial import. Then he stood in the middle of the room, drew a long breath, and, retaining it with puffed cheeks, looked round and round him, turning on his heels, as if to impress every feature of the apartment on his memory.

78. “Seven pieces of plate,” he said. “If there had been ten, I would have risked it. A fine house, and a fine old master, so help me all the saints!”

79. And just then, hearing the old man’s tread returning along the corridor, he stole back to his chair, and began humbly toasting his wet legs before the charcoal pan.

80. His entertainer had a plate of meat in one hand and a jug of wine in the other. He sat down the plate upon the table, motioning Villon to draw in his chair, and, going to the sideboard, brought back two goblets, which he filled.

81. “I drink your better fortune,” he said, gravely touching Villon’s cup with his own.

82. “To our better acquaintance,” said the poet, growing bold. A mere man of the people would have been awed by the courtesy of the old seigneur, but Villon was hardened in that matter; he had made mirth for great lords before now, and found them as black rascals as himself. And so he devoted himself to the viands with a ravenous gusto, while the old man, leaning backward, watched him with steady, curious eyes.

83. “You have blood on your shoulder, my man,” he said.

84. Montigny must have laid his wet right hand upon him as he left the house. He cursed Montigny in his heart.

85. “It was none of my shedding,” he stammered.

86. “I had not supposed so,” returned his host, quietly. “A brawl?”

87. “Well, something of that sort,” Villon admitted with a quaver.

88. “Perhaps a fellow murdered?”

89. “Oh, no, not murdered,” said the poet, more and more confused. “It was all fair play—murdered by accident. I had no hand in it, God strike me dead!” he added, fervently.

90. “One rogue the fewer, I dare say,” observed the master of the house.

91. “You may dare to say that,” agreed Villon, infinitely relieved. “As big a rogue as there is between here and Jerusalem. He turned up his toes like a lamb. But it was a nasty thing to look at. I dare say you’ve seen dead men in your time, my lord?” he added, glancing at the armor.

92. “Many,” said the old man. “I have followed the wars, as you imagine.”

93. Villon laid down his knife and fork, which he had just taken up again.

94. “Were any of them bald?” he asked.

95. “Oh, yes, and with hair as white as mine.”

96. “I don’t think I should mind the white so much,” said Villon. “His was red.” And he had a return of his shuddering and tendency to laughter, which he drowned with a great draught of wine. “I’m a little put out when I think of it,” he went on. “I knew him—damn him! And then the cold gives a man fancies—or the fancies give a man cold, I don’t know which.”

97. “Have you any money?” asked the old man.

98. “I have one white,” returned the poet, laughing. “I got it out of a dead jade’s stocking in a porch. She was as dead as Cæsar, poor wench, and as cold as a church, with bits of ribbon sticking in her hair. This is a hard world in winter for wolves and wenches and poor rogues like me.”

99. “I,” said the old man, “am Enguerrand de la Feuillee, seigneur de Brisetout, bailly du Patatrac. Who and what may you be?”

100. Villon rose and made a suitable reverence. “I am called Francis Villon,” he said, “a poor master of arts in this university. I know some Latin, and a deal of vice. I can make chansons, ballads, lais, virelais, and roundels and I am very fond of wine. I was born in a garret and I shall not improbably die upon the gallows. I may add, my lord, that from this night forward I am your lordship’s very obsequious servant to command.”

101. “No servant of mine,” said the knight; “my guest for this evening, and no more.”

102. “A very grateful guest,” said Villon, politely, and he drank in dumb show to his entertainer.

103. “You are shrewd,” began the old man, tapping his forehead, “very shrewd; you have learning; you are a clerk; and yet you take a small piece of money off a dead woman in the street. Is it not a kind of theft?”

104. “It is a kind of theft much practiced in the wars, my lord.”

105. “The wars are the field of honor,” returned the old man, proudly. “There a man plays his life upon the cast; he fights in the name of his lord the king, his Lord God, and all their lordships the holy saints and angels.”

106. “Put it,” said Villon, “that I were really a thief, should I not play my life also, and against heavier odds?”

107. “For gain, but not for honor.”

108. “Gain?” repeated Villon, with a shrug. “Gain! The poor fellow wants supper, and takes it. So does the soldier in a campaign. Why, what are all these requisitions we hear so much about? If they are not gain to those who take them, they are loss enough to the others. The men-at-arms drink by a good fire, while the burgher bites his nails to buy them wine and wood. I have seen a good many plowmen swinging on trees about the country; ay, I have seen thirty on one elm, and a very poor figure they made; and when I asked some one how all these came to be hanged, I was told it was because they could not scrape together enough crowns to satisfy the men-at-arms.”

109. “These things are a necessity of war, which the low-born must endure with constancy. It is true that some captains drive overhard; there are spirits in every rank not easily moved by pity; and indeed many follow arms who are no better than brigands.”

110. “You see,” said the poet, “you cannot separate the soldier from the brigand; and what is a thief but an isolated brigand with circumspect manners? I steal a couple of mutton chops, without so much as disturbing people’s sleep; the farmer grumbles a bit, but sups none the less wholesomely on what remains. You come up blowing gloriously on a trumpet, take away the whole sheep, and beat the farmer pitifully into the bargain. I have no trumpet; I am only Tom, Dick, or Harry; I am a rogue and a dog, and hanging’s too good for me—with all my heart; but just ask the farmer which of us he prefers, just find out which of us he lies awake to curse on cold nights.”

111. “Look at us two,” said his lordship. “I am old, strong, and honored. If I were turned from my house to-morrow, hundreds would be proud to shelter me. Poor people would go out and pass the night in the streets with their children, if I merely hinted that I wished to be alone. And I find you up, wandering homeless, and picking farthings off dead women by the wayside! I fear no man and nothing; I have seen you tremble and lose countenance at a word. I wait God’s summons contentedly in my own house, or, if it please the king to call me out again, upon the field of battle. You look for the gallows; a rough, swift death, without hope or honor. Is there no difference between these two?”

112. “As far as to the moon,” Villon acquiesced. “But if I had been born Lord of Brisetout, and you had been the poor scholar Francis, would the difference have been any the less? Should I not have been warming my knees at this charcoal pan, and would not you have been groping for farthings in the snow? Should not I have been the soldier and you the thief?”

113. “A thief?” cried the old man. “I a thief! If you understood your words you would repent them.”

114. Villon turned out his hands with a gesture of inimitable impudence. “If your lordship had done me the honor to follow my argument!” he said.

115. “I do you too much honor in submitting to your presence,” said the knight. “Learn to curb your tongue when you speak with old and honorable men, or some one hastier than I may reprove you in a sharper fashion.” And he rose and paced the lower end of the apartment, struggling with anger and antipathy. Villon surreptitiously refilled his cup, and settled himself more comfortably in the chair, crossing his knees and leaning his head upon one hand and the elbow against the back of the chair. He was now replete and warm, and he was in nowise frightened for his host, having gauged him as justly as was possible between two such different characters. The night was far spent, and in a very comfortable fashion after all; and he felt morally certain of a safe departure on the morrow.

116. “Tell me one thing,” said the old man, pausing in his walk. “Are you really a thief?”

117. “I claim the sacred rights of hospitality,” returned the poet. “My lord, I am.”

118. “You are very young,” the knight continued.

119. “I should never have been so old,” replied Villon, showing his fingers, “if I had not helped myself with these ten talents. They have been my nursing mothers and my nursing fathers.”

120. “You may still repent and change.”

121. “I repent daily,” said the poet. “There are few people more given to repentance than poor Francis. As for change, let somebody change my circumstances. A man must continue to eat, if it were only that he may continue to repent.”

122. “The change must begin in the heart,” returned the old man solemnly.

123. “My dear lord,” answered Villon, “do you really fancy that I steal for pleasure? I hate stealing, like any other piece of work or of danger. My teeth chatter when I see a gallows. But I must eat, I must drink, I must mix in society of some sort. What the devil! Man is not a solitary animal—Cui Deus fœminam tradit. Make me king’s pantler—make me abbot of St. Denis; make me bailly of the Patatrac; and then I shall be changed indeed. But as long as you leave me the poor scholar Francis Villon, without a farthing, why, of course, I remain the same.”

124. “The grace of God is all-powerful.”

125. “I should be a heretic to question it,” said Francis. “It has made you lord of Brisetout and bailly of the Patatrac; it has given me nothing but the quick wits under my hat and these ten toes upon my hands. May I help myself to wine? I thank you respectfully. By God’s grace, you have a very superior vintage.”

126. The lord of Brisetout walked to and fro with his hands behind his back. Perhaps he was not yet quite settled in his mind about the parallel between thieves and soldiers; perhaps Villon had interested him by some cross-thread of sympathy; perhaps his wits were simply muddled by so much unfamiliar reasoning; but whatever the cause, he somehow yearned to convert the young man to a better way of thinking, and could not make up his mind to drive him forth again into the street.

127. “There is something more than I can understand in this,” he said at length. “Your mouth is full of subtleties, and the devil has led you very far astray; but the devil is only a very weak spirit before God’s truth, and all his subtleties vanish at a word of true honor, like darkness at morning. Listen to me once more. I learned long ago that a gentleman should live chivalrously and lovingly to God, and the king, and his lady; and though I have seen many strange things done, I have still striven to command my ways upon that rule. It is not only written in all noble histories, but in every man’s heart, if he will take care to read. You speak of food and wine, and I know very well that hunger is a difficult trial to endure; but you do not speak of other wants; you say nothing of honor, of faith to God and other men, of courtesy, of love without reproach. It may be that I am not very wise—and yet I am—but you seem to me like one who has lost his way and made a great error in life. You are attending to the little wants, and you have totally forgotten the great and only real ones, like a man who should be doctoring toothache on the Judgment Day. For such things as honor and love and faith are not only nobler than food and drink, but indeed I think we desire them more, and suffer more sharply for their absence. I speak to you as I think you will most easily understand me. Are you not while careful to fill your belly, disregarding another appetite in your heart, which spoils the pleasure of your life and keeps you continually wretched?”

128. Villon was sensibly nettled under all this sermonizing. “You think I have no sense of honor!” he cried. “I’m poor enough, God knows! It’s hard to see rich people with their gloves, and you blowing in your hands. An empty belly is a bitter thing, although you speak so lightly of it. If you had had as many as I, perhaps you would change your tune. Any way, I’m a thief—make the most of that—but I’m not a devil from hell, God strike me dead. I would have you to know I’ve an honor of my own, as good as yours, though I don’t prate about it all day long, as if it was a God’s miracle to have any. It seems quite natural to me; I keep it in its box till it’s wanted. Why, now, look you here, how long have I been in this room with you? Did you not tell me you were alone in the house? Look at your gold plate! You’re strong, if you like, but you’re old and unarmed, and I have my knife. What did I want but a jerk of the elbow and here would have been you with the cold steel in your bowels, and there would have been me, linking in the streets, with an armful of golden cups! Did you suppose I hadn’t wit enough to see that? And I scorned the action. There are your damned goblets as safe as in a church, there are you with your heart ticking as good as new, and here am I, ready to go out again as poor as I came in, with my one white that you threw in my teeth! And you think I have no sense of honor—God strike me dead!”

129. The old man stretched out his right arm. “I will tell you what you are,” he said. “You are a rogue, my man, an impudent and black-hearted rogue and vagabond. I have passed an hour with you. Oh! believe me, I feel myself disgraced! And you have eaten and drunk at my table. But now I am sick at your presence; the day has come, and the night-bird should be off to his roost. Will you go before, or after?”

130. “Which you please,” returned the poet, rising. “I believe you to be strictly honorable.” He thoughtfully emptied his cup. “I wish I could add you were intelligent,” he went on, knocking on his head with his knuckles. “Age! age! the brains stiff and rheumatic.”

131. The old man preceded him from a point of self-respect; Villon followed, whistling, with his thumbs in his girdle.

132. “God pity you!” said the lord of Brisetout at the door.

133. “Good-bye, papa,” returned Villon, with a yawn. “Many thanks for the cold mutton.”

134. The door closed behind him. The dawn was breaking over the white roofs. A chill, uncomfortable morning ushered in the day. Villon stood and heartily stretched himself in the middle of the road.

135. “A very dull old gentleman,” he thought. “I wonder what his goblets may be worth.”

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR STUDY

1. Briefly write out the plot of the story.

2. Which incidents are essential to the story (plot incidents)?

3. Which incidents could be altered without vitally changing the story (developing incidents)? For a discussion of these types of incidents see the present author’s Writing the Short-Story, pp. 174-181.